There already exist numerous proposals for crushable bottles made of plastics material, e.g. in U.S. Pat. No. 5,209,372 which describes a bottle whose side wall has helical ribs between its bottom and its top, or U.S. Pat. No. 5,201,438 and U.S. Pat. No. 4,790,301 which describe a bottle whose side wall is made up of plane facets, or indeed FR-2 316 132 and FR-2 259 754 which show bottles in which the side wall is formed by juxtaposing curved diamond-shapes that are defined by ribs and whose diagonals constitute fold creases. The complexity of the shapes of some of those known bottles makes them difficult to manufacture. Others have no transverse undulations, such that after bottling they cannot be used to make up palletized loads that are handled, transported, and stored in the form of stacks since in such stacks the bottles in the bottom layer must withstand high pressure stresses, and if there are no transverse undulations, then they do not provide the necessary "damping".
Consequently, the problem arises of providing a plastics material bottle that is crushable by applying an axial force, whose general shape is close to that of known bottles (to enable it to be used in existing bottling factories without alteration), which is capable of being stored and transported in the form of palletized loads and of stacks, and which is reduced, after crushing, to a residue of small volume whose shape is substantially stable, i.e. permanent and practically incapable of elastic deformation.